Amazon

Bonsai by Clara

Clara building a modern lending platform to eliminate the billions of dollars and thousands of hours of waste that plague the $10 trillion mortgage market, delivering a home financing experience that is efficient, intuitive, and straightforward.

Overview

Automated and instrument the loan officers workflow through a tasked based platform.

Clara

Clara building a modern lending platform to eliminate the billions of dollars and thousands of hours of waste that plague the $10 trillion mortgage market, delivering a home financing experience that is efficient, intuitive, and straightforward.

Laying a Foundation

When I first joined Clara, it was a blank slate with no design guide or component library. With the help of my co-worker, we created a robust, modular, and cohesive design system that allowed for designers and developers to easily create and build features with extreme accuracy and speed.

The goal of the design system was to unify our language and have our products be device and screen agnostic, as seen in our products. In order to accomplish this goal, we took the best industry standard conventions from Apple, Google, Facebook distilling them into a singular system.

Modularity

The modularity of the design system allows for features to be built without negatively affecting others, rapid iteration, and easily adding or modifying elements. Below are some examples of this. We can add or remove elements without having to dramatically change the code or design. This allows for us to design for the future while also designing for the current. If a toolbar includes meta data and actions that won't be implemented for the MVP, they are hidden until that functionality is supported.

Design Guide

It was crucial to have a design guide and a component library accessible in the cloud. This allowed for designs to stay consistent amongst the design team with open company access making it easier for product managers and developers to reference. This allows for easy and rapid feature creation for both designers and developers.

Design Language

Laying a Foundation

When I first joined Sindeo there was no design guide or component library. It was just a blank slate. With the help of my co-worker we created a robust, modular and cohesive design system that allowed for designers and developers to easily create and build features with extreme accuracy and speed.

The goal of the design system was to unify our language and have our products be device and screen agnostic as seen in our products. In order to accomplish this goal we took the best industry standard conventions from the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook, and others and combined them together.

Modularity

The modularity of the design system allows for features to be built without negatively affecting others, rapid iteration, and easily adding or modifying elements. Below are some examples of this. We can add or remove elements without having to dramatically change the code or design. This allows for us to design for the future while also designing for the current. If a toolbar includes meta data and actions that won't be implemented for the MVP, they are hidden until that functionality is supported.

Design Guide

It was crucial to have a design guide that was up to and a component library that was accessible online and as a Sketch file to keep all designs, old and new, consistent, allow anyone in the company access, and make it easier for developers to set up their own guide. This allows for easy and rapid feature creation for both designers and developers.

Imgur

Imgur is the best place to explore, share, and discuss the Internet’s images. Millions of images are uploaded each day to Imgur, where they are distilled by the community into a stream of the most captivating visual stories anywhere on the web. Each month, images hosted by Imgur are seen more than 60 billion times around the web, and Comscore ranks Imgur among the top 100 sites in the US.

As Imgur's UI + UX Designer, I focused on creating Imgur's user experience and user interface by taking broad, conceptual ideas and turning them into an effective experience for millions of users. Responsibilities include detailing/polishing work until it's pixel-perfect, creating design flows/natural paradigms and contributing to high-level strategic decisions with the rest of the product and executive teams.

Sindeo

The Problem

Getting a mortgage is hard. The experience is overwhelming, not intuitive, confusing, difficult, long, boring, and the list of negative adjectives goes on. Mortgages are a trillion dollar industry. They still uses technology from 20+ years ago. It is one of the largest purchases a person can make. Yet, there has been little effort to change all that. Did you know that...

The average time it takes to close a loan is 45 days.Over 50 people will touch the loan. Lenders still make people fax documents.

Over 68% of adults in the U.S. own a smartphone and not one of them can go through the entire mortgage process on one, but they can order cookies on-demand.

User Research

Myself and my co-worker interviewed a variety of people in person getting insight into their thoughts on the mortgage process and how a mobile app could be beneficial. We used job stories to better identify features based on motivations.

- When I'm looking for a rate, I want to be able to compare multiple options, so I can find the one that works best for me.

- When I'm learning about getting a mortgage, I want to get unbiased advice, so I can purchase with confidence.

- When I'm getting a mortgage, I want to be able to see the progress anywhere and anytime, so I can stay up to date.

- When I'm getting a mortgage, I want a checklist of things I need to do, so I can keep track.

The Solution

Creating an app that allows people to get a mortgage is just one of the many things it takes to reinvent the mortgage process. There needs to be a fundamental change in how lenders work, the technology, the customer experience, and much more. If you want to see how I helped improve the customer experience internally check out the Salesforce CRM Project.

Sindeo's Salesforce CRM

Overview

One of Sindeo's main differentiators from its competitors is its unbiased customer service. Having the right technology makes it easier for the Mortgage Advisors to provide unparalleled service. Currently they use three platforms to get the job done. Having to navigate back-and-forth between the different platforms is time consuming, annoying, and not intuitive. One of the platforms was an out-of-the-box Salesforce solution that was preventing the Advisors from focusing on their customers because they were focusing on what wasn't working properly because it had not been customized for them. My team, along with the Director of Customer Experience and engineers developed a customized, streamlined and robust solution.

Research

We interviewed the majority of our Mortgage Advisors’s finding their likes and dislikes, what was working or broken and created an ideal user flow based off their feedback. What we found was insightful; It was also clear that design alone couldn't solve all the problems, but a back-end refresh was also needed.

- The dashboard is useless because it's too hard to read and the data is wrong.

- Why doesn't the leads information transfer from one system to another?

- Why do I have to use three systems to complete an app?

- Why does it take so many steps to just enter a piece of info for a lead?

- Why am I required to fill out all these fields when I only need three?

- I have to create views to find the best leads, why can't it be automatic?

Dashboard

This is the starting point when an MA first logs in. The idea here is to show an MA what they need to do next so they can focus on how to best help the customer and not worry which lead is the best or not. They can view their performance and figure out if they are meeting their goals or not and funnel down into a more detailed view.

Lead List & Details

Currently the MA's have to navigate away from their leads list and back just for the lead details. We solved this by creating a view that had both the lead list and details. This saves a click and time, time the MA's could spend helping customers.

Activity

Each lead has a detailed view of their activity. Anything from filling out a form to uploading a document is captured here. This allows an MA to know when to communicate with their customer or complete the next step.

Documents

Right now MA's navigate away from Salesforce to access documents that the customers upload. This takes the MA's out of context and slows them down. By combining these two systems we have saved MA's countless hours a month and made it easier to move between documents and updating info.

Emails

The MA's currently use an external mail app that doesn't have templates, requires MA's to copy and paste text (very error prone), and makes them switch apps to complete tasks. Including a way to email customers in the same app the MA's work from makes their life easier, less mistakes are being made, and of course saves a lot of time.

Notes

When MA's are on the phone with customers they need to jot down info that wasn't collected from them filling out a form online. They have two places to do that so if they need to look at a document or the customers activity they always have a place to add a note.

Questionnaire

Once a lead is converted into an app the MA's have to go into another system. Again, we combined the two into one to remove the app switching and save time.

Calendar

It is very important for the MA's to stay on top of their tasks and have their day planned out. Instead of using an external calendar app we designed one inside of Salesforce. Tasks or meetings are automatically added and it is smart enough to not have tasks overlap. If a potential customer schedules a phone call with an MA it is added to the calendar and a notification is sent to alert them.

Activity - Customers

Anything that happens with an MA's customers and themselves is added to this feed. Being able to see what happened and when is very helpful to the MA. It allows them to take action as soon as a document is uploaded or an email is viewed.

PublicShipping

PublicShipping is a multi-platform, transportation, and logistics marketplace API meant for quick delivery between B2B, P2B, and P2P using established channels.

Weekend Challenege: Words With Friends

The app has 5 million likes on Facebook, 270k users on Android and a near perfect rating on iTunes…needless to say, the app’s got reach. I love WWF, but as a product designer, the app is a perpetual UI + UX nightmare to use. It breaks best practices, industry conventions and is riddled with skeuomorphism - eek (2007 called, it wants its aesthetic back!). Nothing’s more frustrating when you find yourself using a product that doesn’t make you feel well considered. You’d think that a company with this much influence would have been wise enough to put an emphasis on design!

I took a shot at revisiting the aesthetics, brand, and gently recalibrating the user experience as best as I knew how. Also, bear in mind these mockups are in no way supposed to represent what should happen; this is simply one designers interpretation given a couple of days to readdress these items.

Ideally, this post could potentially inspire change within the design team at Zynga (WWF’s parent company). I've written them a note and attached the Sketch file.

Wif

Ever had a 'what if...' moment? What if you could share it with the world?

I am always asking 'what if...' questions to my friends, but what if my friends were not around to listen or engage in my favorite activity? That's where Wif comes in.

Typography Study

Typography is an essential part of the visual language designers use to communicate. Type is often used to call out subject matter, emphasize actions and create hierarchy. This typography study illustrates the exploration of type within composition, form and legibility to further understand the visual and conceptual boundaries of how typography can be effectively implemented.

Maker-space

Brown University School of Engineering is renovating part of Prince Lab to house a design- or maker-space type of facility to encourage a more creative culture and an interdisciplinary approach to design. This workspace is still in the early stages of planning and the types of equipment, resources and space that it will contain are still to be determined. Nevertheless it is clear that the environment, tools and furnishings will need to support and encourage creativity, collaboration, innovation, visual and verbal communications, interdisciplinary – all while building, fabricating, prototyping and making of every kind occurs.

The goal was to determine one component of the environment that could be built in multiples – a maker-space table ideal for 3D printing modules. Research was conducted on users, context, requirements and constraints; to design the most creative, functional concept. The concepts were reviewed with the possibility of further refinement and potential use in Brown’s new facility.

Founded STEAM Iniative @RISD

Led and organized featured speakers at the Rhode Island School of Design’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) Speaker Series to speak on the importance of art and design in the national agenda for innovation and design strategy in other disciplines. Speakers included the likes of TED Talks creator, Richard Saul Wurman, VMA winner and OK GO music director, Adam Sadowsky.

CVS

Working in a team of three at RISD in conjunction with medical experts on Alzheimer’s Disease from Brown University and tasked directly by CVS Chief Marketing Officer, Rob Price, to formulate a design strategy for the CVS pharmaceutical market by exploring the realities of marketing to an older population through ethnographic and design research. The final focus resulted in iconography studies, field research, UI+UX prototype self-checkout for flagship stores and product to mobile user engagement.

SoBe

Digital Collage

This piece was meant to explore the potential of experience, interactivity, and analogy as a means of narrating complex stories through physical contours of our digital environments. This piece is meant to illustrate complexity hidden under the thin veneer of our digital devices and uncover the ramifications of the internet in our everyday realities.

Sad Balloon

Slump

Pop What?!

Animals

Wood Stool/Table

Bent Laminated Wood

Ranger Tool

RISD's special topic project challenge to create fully fledged product and packaging deliverable in short amount of time based off of the words chosen from hat.

Words: outdoor + safety

RISD Algae as Alternative Energy

A successful exhibit design relies heavily on effective communication of information through visuals and the dramatic use of a 3D environment. As designers, we can maximize the opportunity to capture the attention of our viewers by creating a compelling exhibit by using expressive forms and visual messages that work together to convey a point of view and a distinct message. Designing at a larger scale requires an understanding of human scale, and blends the disciplines of marketing, graphics, architecture and interiors with industrial design. This project objective was to create a modular and portable traveling exhibit that would showcase and explain a socially responsible topic that affects teenagers in Rhode Island.

The team conducted research on current traveling exhibit designs to explore physical examples of best practices in designing at a larger scale. The exhibit embodied a clear message while communicating key information in a compelling 3D environment. The team combined visual images, form, text and a hierarchy of information.